As you are
probably aware, negative judgments, whether about yourself or others, feel
unpleasant. Even when the ego criticizes others as a way of making itself feel superior,
an inner contraction results. The discomfort might be interpreted as anger, depression,
resentment, fear, or hostility.
Positive
judgments can also cause contraction. For example, if you feel good about your
appearance or possessions or accomplishments, then your good feeling is
dependent on them. The implication is that without them, you would not feel
good about yourself. This can cause an inner contraction, perhaps not as
unpleasant as the one that results from negative judgments, but there is still a
contraction.
Why is this
so? Because judgment is always about the false self. The true self cannot be
judged because it has no attributes that the mind can make into objects and then
judge. The inner contraction that results from judging comes from the knowledge
that a false thing is being judged and that the true self is being ignored.
All
judgments are ultimately absurd, because they are a failed attempt to judge
what cannot be judged.
You might
ask, “Does this mean that we should just accept anything that anyone does, even
atrocities?” Some acts are certainly unpleasant, and they should not be approved
of the way we approve of pleasant acts. But let us not confuse the deed with
the doer. We can acknowledge and try to prevent heinous acts, but if we judge
the people who commit them, we poison ourselves with anger and resentment.
If the idea
of not judging anyone seems absurd, that is your ego talking. The ego loves to
judge, to use an unpleasant act as an excuse to diminish the actor, to define others
in a very limited manner. For example, if a politician proposes a policy that
the ego disagrees with, it will judge him as a “jerk” or an “idiot” based on
that one act, completely ignoring everything else about him, such as his
previous record, his devotion as a father, etc. This sort of blind, knee-jerk
reaction is characteristic of the small, childish, weak, fearful self that is
the ego.
